Drop box: A tool for learning
Renuka K. Shewkani
Asst. Prof.Seva Sadan’s College of Education,Ulhasnagar-3
The explosion of information , the movement away from the use of textbooks the increased
concern for learning styles, advances in instructional & information technologies, advocacy for
self directed learning & collaborative teaching are factors that increase the complexity in
planning for instruction. Faculties have to attempt to include curriculum integration; resources
based learning, new evaluation practices & technology into their daily teaching.
The present paper deals with developing course content/material with the help of drop box for
self directed learning for students who are doing B.ED course through distance mode. Teacher
Educators should use various tools of ICT to develop content for students.
Keywords: Distance mode, drop box, role of teacher educator, course content,
Introduction: Learning is fundamental to the progress of humanity—for economic prosperity,
social well-being, personal fulfilment, and to help ensure a sustainable planet. These emergent
innovations help us create a new vision of learning—learning as an activity not a place, where it
is wide open to new people with new ideas. Learners pulling” learning toward themselves rather
than teachers “pushing”. And learning systems that spread far beyond school and involve
learners and parents as contributors as well as customers. The time is now ripe to generate
insights and learning from these innovations and consider how they can be used to inform the
principles of a new, widespread Learning Society.
Students who are doing B.Ed through IGNOU sometimes gets less exposure of
course content due to disturbances like Bandha, strike, natural calamities, manmade calamities.
Sometimes pupil teacher remain absent due to sickness, family responsibilities etc. Due to these
subject by classroom counselling. In academic counselling sessions some units are partially
overviewed, some units remains totally untouched, due to submission of different activities like
microteaching, assignments, macro lesson plan, seminars, projects etc. This causes effect of
educational loss of the students.
Every honest teacher educator working in institution expects that every teaching day should be
learning day. Sometimes this expectation does not reach near to fulfilment due to some reasons.
As developed countries are now recruiting teachers from India, Indian teacher education
institutions need to develop high quality technology integrated teacher education programmes.
Hence, there is a need to have special teacher education courses in India which can deliver high
quality technology integrated teacher education programmes. Meeting the evolving needs of
learners throughout their lifetimes is a major challenge, and it’s more urgent than ever before.
But we should view it as a huge opportunity and one of our biggest obligations to future
generations. By connecting and empowering learners and educators we can accelerate economic
growth and improve social wellbeing worldwide.
Education and technology are the two great equalizers in life. Education and technology go
hand in hand, with the network serving as the platform for what we call the Learning.
The future of education is networked. Using the full power of video and mobility, people can
collaborate to create and share knowledge as well as develop new ways of teaching and learning
that captures the attention and imagination of learners anywhere, anytime on any device.
Supports systems of continuous innovation and feedback to develop knowledge of what works in
which circumstance with this “death of distance”, Technology provides the universal
infrastructure to IGNOU students they need to succeed—still physical but increasingly virtual.
Growing up with unprecedented access to technology has changed the way young people “digital
natives”, communicate, interact, process information & learn (oblinger & oblinger, 2005).
In the future, learning will become substantially more important to every part of global society. It
involves a wide variety of skills, including researching topics, writing scripts, storyboarding, &
assembling the final product using video editing software (ohler, 2006). By integrating visual
images with written text accelerate student comprehension (Burmark 2004). Today’s classroom
students. Being prepared to use technology & knowing how that technology can support student
learning have become integral skills in every teacher’s professional repertoire.
Human resources development will spend Rs. 1.71lakh crores for Right to education policy for
five years. Currently more than 5.23 lakh teacher posts are vacant. 5.48 lakh untrained teachers at
the primary & 2.25 lakh at upper primary level have teacher acquire necessary qualification
within five years of the Right to education. Teacher who is willing to enter into transaction with
the desire to learn & into a relationship with the learner have to update their knowledge of using
technology in teaching. As Joseph Axelord defines the transactional relationship at work in the
Socratic model, the activities of inquiring, defining, exploring, discovering, accepting, rejecting
are ones that students & teachers engage in jointly & in relation to one another.
Learning society requires that, like many products on a global market, education becomes a
commodity and that students or participants in the learning process become consumers, able to
pick and choose the types of education that they would like, to suit their own personal
preferences.
Research questions:
1. Is it possible to develop course content/ material with the help of dropbox for self directed
learning in institution especially for those students who are learning through distance
mode?
2. How this material will be created?
3. What will be its utility?
4. How content developed using dropbox is useful to teachers & students learning through
distance mode?
5. What is changing role of teacher educator in the era of information & technology?
6. Whether the entire teacher can develop material for college library using different
resources of ICT?
7. To recognizes that people learn differently, and their needs are different.
8. To develop a culture of learning throughout life.
Experiment: Innovation in the classroom
In order to get answer of above mentioned research questions, Teacher educator had performed
following experiment in Seva Sadan’s College of Education using drop box for self directed
Mission of Seva Sadan college is to provide quality education & Lifelong learning. Principal Dr.
Beena Khemchandani inspired all teachers to use ICT tools in teaching learning process. Seva
Sadan College have well equipped library, computer laboratory, all the floors have CCTV
cameras, think line in library as well as on other floors to access different library resources.
Being a tech-savvy college, college has a text based communication system for the students. All
the important communication is relayed to students through group SMS. College library have
Soul Software for university libraries. Our college is study centre for IGNOU & YCMOU for
B.ED course.
Teacher educator (myself) decided to make use of drop box to teach & deliver the course
content of Sociological foundation of Education, computer in Education, maths method using
e-learning in the academic year 2012-13.
Drop box application runs on windows, Mac or Linux operating system. It is free service
provided by the founder of drop box Drew Houston in 2007. Drop box is like a regular
folder on your computer where you can keep stuff but has a magical twist, every file that
you put in your drop box is automatically backed up to the cloud to keep it completely
safe & secure. Drop box is a great service that helps you keep your files safe,
synchronised & accessible from anywhere. Drop box folder works, a just like any other
folder in your hard drive, except everything in your drop box folder automatically
synchronised to the web & to any other computer with drop box installed. Drop box have
2.25 GB space for use.
Procedure: First step is downloading the drop box through internet. Then create a new account /
enter sign. You will notice a drop box folder on your hard drive. Once you have installed
the application on each of your computers using the same drop box login, your files will
appear in the drop box folder of those computer.
When you drag the files into drop box folder automatically synchronised online & to any
other computer or mobile device. You can share files with anyone, even non-drop users, by
getting a link to any file or folder. Once you get the link, you can send it by e-mail, face book,
twitter etc. Make a link to files & folders in your drop box & quickly share your documents,
presentation & videos with students. Even if they don’t have drop box students can use the link
can preview the files & folder through their browser.
• The files will be backed up & kept safe. E.g. –file of demonstration of micro lesson & mega lesson in YouTube, file of question bank in word form,
assignment, file of course content through power point, projects for reference in
word form etc will be saved forever.
• You will be able to access them from any computer or smart phone. As all the
students will get link, so they can assess through internet. All the different files
kept by teacher educator in drop box can be referred by pupil teacher anytime.
• You can easily share files with other people. Teacher educator as well as pupil
teacher can share knowledge of course content with others.
• It works when you go offline. once you have downloaded all the files , when you
are offline you can refer them anytime
Result : From the feedback given by the B.ED students ( IGNOU) it is evident that
a) It is possible to develop self directed learning atmosphere for students using drop box
application especially for those students who are doing B.ED course through distance
mode.
b) .The self directed learning material can be developed with the help of staff and students if
they are motivated. If teacher educator gives the material of pupil teacher they can help in
typing, preparing different files, downloading different material etc
c) The self directed learning material developed via drop box remains available at any time,
while studying the topics using drop box. This brings about co-cooperative learning of
students.
d) Content prepared through different files kept in drop box can be updated at any time.
Student can refer the content and references for preparing assignments and examination.
e) Teachers working in colleges need to adopt to change if they have to survive and keep
pace with new methods and technologies.
f) All the teachers should use various tools of ICT to develop content for college library so
that students can access content anywhere and anytime.
g) Pupil teacher (IGNOU) agrees that learning through power point presentation, YouTube,
e-mail is enjoyable activity. It fulfils their needs of learning.
h) Teacher Educator should always update files related with different teaching learning
Recommendation: Teacher Educator should use various tools of technology in teaching learning
process. Internet in allowing education to move beyond traditional boundaries and move across
transnational borders instantly, through technological advances that allow students to access
learning resources globally. Under this attribute, education would then become tailored towards
providing “customer satisfaction” to students doing B.ED through IGNOU.
Conclusion:
The future of education is networked. Using the full power of video and mobility, people can
collaborate to create and share knowledge as well as develop new ways of teaching and learning
that captures the attention and imagination of learners anywhere, anytime on any device.
Consumers and researchers are able to look across the world for the best product. Whereas in the
past, education systems could produce people who were “good enough”, or research that met
local needs,
Globalization demands deeper knowledge and broader skills for development of education.
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